Fastener



7 June 10 1924.. 1,497,663

N. B. PIERSALL FASTENER Filed May 5, 1923 WITNESSES Name; [0N5 P/tFES/YLL BY Wank A TTORNEYS Patented June 10, 1924.

NAPOLEON B. PIERSALL, OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.

FASTENER.

Application filed May 3,1923. Serial No. 636,506.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, NAPOLEON B. PIER- SALL, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Newark, in the county of Essex and State of New Jersey, have invented a new and Improved Fastener, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact descrip tion. i V

This invention is an improvement in latch fasteners for miscellaneous uses and of the kind disclosed in U. S. Letters Patent No. 997,832, issued to one Klein and myself, in that the present latch, like the one there disclosed, is not a type of latch which must be destroyed to be disengaged like a familiar form of car-seal, and in that the present latch comprises essentially two structures one of which has a pocket normally open at the front and incorporating a detent spring for the head of the other structure and overhanging the entrance to the pocket, the pocket otherwise having walls girthing or substantially girthing the pocket in rear of such opening, and the other structure having a head as just mentioned constructed to lift the spring in passingiinto the pocket and further having a portion for being detained by the spring on full insertion of. the head endwisely into the pocket, to the end that unlike some similar constructions of the devices of others constituting prior art relative tosaid patent andrelative to the in vention of this application, the two structures, once engaged, may not be disengaged except on a deliberate rocking oi" the spring element of the pocket-carrying structure relative to the head-carrying structure and a rocking ot the spring element across the plane of the line of endwise advance of the head into the pocket in coupling up the structures.

The feature of the construction of said Klein and Piersall patent was, however, "an arrangement whereby a multi-part con struction and one rather complicated and expensive had to be provided, chiefly because suchoverhanging spring of the pocket and hence the whole pocketcarrying struc ture could not practically be made out of a single unitary piece of sheet metal. Such difficulty was the result of a conception of the pocket as a recess cut out ofa solid piece of material, and therefore the spring element was necessarily a separate piece having an opening and hence the spring was really a frame-like device presenting an inner edge beyond the pocket mouth and below the pocket'top and facing the'interior of the pocket and consequently a detent edge of the spring element not constituting a terminal or even an exterior bounding edge thereof.

According to the present invention, the pocket is preferably incompletely girthed near its mouth and has side portions and part of the top portions of its walls formed of upwardly bent or curled tabs offset from opposite sides oi a unitary piece of sheet material, while the spring device is a considerably longer tab or rearward extension of said piece and reversely bent to lie above the entire length of the pocket, thus to permit the free end of the spring to be again bent, preferably by a reverse bend, to provide the spring-detent means proper at a terminal edge thereof facing the pocket mouth.

According to the present invention, fur ther, the head member is likewise preferably of unitary sheet metal construction, thus satisfying another important object of the invention, which is to provide a latch of the kind above indicated wherein each of the two separable structures is adapted to be constructed out of a sheet metal blank and with a minimum of waste material and a minimum of die expense and upkeep.

The invention will be best understood from a consideration of the following detailed description when. taken in connection with the accompanying drawing forming part of this specification; with. the understanding, however, that such drawing illustrates, merely by way of example, one possible embodiment of the invention, and that the invention is not confined to any strict conformity with the showing in the drawing, but may be changed and modifiedv so long assuch changes and modifications mark no material departure "from the salient features of the invention as expressed in the appended claims. 7

For instance, in said drawing, Figs. 1 to 3 show an embodiment of the new latch exhibiting all the advantages above stated when used as a quick detachable yet secure lock for holding'down the hood sections for an automobile, and Figs. 4 to 7 show the embodiment for use as a garment, tent-flap or other textile-applied fastener also according to the present invention, but a type of fastener which will generally be produced from very light sheet material and 7 line 3.3'of Fig. 2;

i 4 is a side elevation of the pocket member, detached, of a latch for garments t-th l ke;

"Fig. 5 is a top plan view of'the member o g 4 r r Ei 6 isa view similar to Fig. l, but showing. the Complementary. head member, deta hed;

Fig. I is a top, plan view of the member twill. Figs. 4 to 7, if the latch of Figs. 1 to 3 is assumed to be shown on about or slightly larger than the. actual-size scale, is shown, for purposes of clarity, on a very much larger scale than that which willactually b employed.

Believing that. the structural details of the latch of Figs. 1 to 3 will be betterunderstood if such details of the simpler latch. of the other views are first described, reference will preliminarily bemade to Figs. 4 to 7..

'Here it will be seenat a glance that the headas well as the pocket member 18 formed of a single piece of sheet material, as spring steel, brass or thelike ;and that each carries, inaddition. to its tab-like portions 8 and 8',

;- horizontallongitudinal section.

having apertures 9,and 9 by which the men loers may be attached, by stitching or otherwise, to the parts carrying them, a pair of tabs at opposite sides of the member and bent .or curled up toward each other to form a more or less resilient claw or yoke-like struiieture above the bottom plane of the member. V

ln the case of the head-carrying member 10 ,of Figs. 6 and 7 these side tabs, marked 11, form a hollow head, hereinafter called the head 11. This head is split lengthwise of its top, as at 12, and may be; said to taper in vertical longitudinal section as well as in In the case of the po cketcarrying member let of Figs. a an ..th s side ta s, m k orm pocjket structure, hereinafter called the pocketstructure 15, somewhat similar to the hollow h a of themed-Carm ne Structure- 'lhj t isto say. such pocketreally a splitband clasp according to the present inven- V tjion, is jyet tapered so as to have its internal surfacefsnug'ly to embrace the outside surface of the head of memberlO when inserted to the maximum in the. pocket, and the peeks ihas a top ng t n l split st bbe appreciated that the latch of lished by the spaced relation of the mutually approaching free edges 16 of the side curled tabs. This split is of dissimilar shape to that of the split 12 of the head carrying portions of the head on opposite sides of the split of the latter.

The edges 16 of the side-curled tabs establishing the pocket 15 are prolonged as shown best in Fig. 5 to establish a pair of small leaves 17, for a purpose which will appear in a moment.

Pocket-carrying member 14 further can ries, but as its sole additional element to those just described, a long tab or tloor-portion extension 18 presenting the spring-dc tent, hereinafter referred to as the spring 18, or the manually releasable automatic headlatching' element 18. As will be seen, this long tab, springing out from the rear end of the floor-portion of member 14, is bent or curled up and then bent further to extend over the entire length of pocket 15 to a point some distance beyond the forward ends of leaves 17. Also, the forward terminal portion 19 of the spring is bent down and back toward the pocket to present a rearwardly directed edge facing the pocket mouth and below said leaves '17. These parts 17 and 19 thus co-act to limit the ex tent of temporary upward movement of the head latching element or spring 18, to permit the head to be instantaneously slipped clear of the pocket, when a finger-11a il or the like is inserted under and pulled upward relative to portion 19 of spring '18.

Referring now to Figs. 1 to 3. we find again a. unitary pocket and spring-dctcnt member, and a unitary head member; the former member to be fixedly carricd by the movable hood section A and the latter to be fixedly carried by a shelf structure B on the automobile body, as a fender portion.

The pocket member, marked 14-". carries a handle or operating projection 21. offset from spring-detent 18, for manually releasing the latter; which handle may have its handle-shank 21, also formed of integral tabs if desired, but which tab construction is not the one affording most economical manufacture. in view of probable material waste, as will be understood. In all other respects. the pocket member is precisely similar to the pocketn'iember of Figs. 4 and 5, except of course that there is no ne essity for havingthe terminal portion 19 of element 18 quite as long as the similar portion 19 of Fig. 4,

In the case of the head. member of Figs. 1', 2 and 3, there marked 10, the same is rather similar to thehead member of Figs. 6 and 7; indeed, the only dillcrence is that the floor portion of the member is not uniplanar, as in Fig. 6, but is provided with a central upstanding tapering rib 22 of trimember, and is designed for overlying root .lll

Hid

lilii angular cross-section. This rib is provided for purposes of imparting increased rigidity to the entire head member and conveniently providing attaching tabs 8 oppositely and symmetrically arranged relative to rim 22 as shown, and extending in a plane perpendicular to the attaching tabs 8 of pocket member 14", said plane being also perpendicular to the line of extension of the head member.

The slight resiliency of the hollow type of construction provided by the present invention for the head of one member and for the pocket of the other is particularly important in the case of the embodiment last described, as will be understood. Such a construction allows for slight relative shifting of diilerent portions of the unitary pieces of which the two members are made, to take care of a slight swinging movement of a section it in coupling up the two members.

I claim:

1. In a releasable, repeatedly usable latch of the typefincluding a pockit -carrying structure and a head-carrying structure, wherein pocket and head are so designed as to preclude introduction of the head into the pocket beyond a predetermined extent and to preclude lateral rocking of the head in the pocket, and of the type further in; cluding a detent spring carried by the pocket-carrying structure for automatically snapping into engagement witha part of the head-carrying structure when the latter structure has its head entered in the pocket to said predetermined extent and so as to permit manual release of said head from the spring on relatively and momentarily throwingthe spring to an, abnormal posi tion,v a pocket member formed of a unitary piece of sheet material: and carrying a pocket having an open mouth, and a detent spring having a length overlying the top of the pocket and having a terminal portion downwardly bent to extend below the top of the pocket.

2. In a releasable repeatedly usable latch of the type including a pocket-carrying structure and a head-carrying structure. wherein pocket and head are so designed as to preclude introduction of the I head into the pocket beyond a predetermined extent and to preclude lateral rocking or" the head. in the pocket. and of the type further including a detent spring carried by the pocket-carrying structure for automatically snapping into engagement with a part of the head-carrying structure when the latter structure has its head entered in the pocket to said predetermined extent and so as to permit manual release of said head. from the sprin on relatively and momentarily throwing t e spring to an abnormal position, a pocket member formed of a unitary piece of sheet material and carrying a pair of tabs on opposite sides bent up and toward each other to form a resiliently established pocket of gradually decreasing cross-section along the length of the member and having an open mouth at its larger end.

3. In a releasable, repeatedly usable latch. of the type including a v pocket-carrying structure and a head-carrying structure, wherein pocket and head are .so designed as to preclude introduction of the head into the pocket beyond a, predetermined extent and to preclude lateral rocking of the head in the pocket, and of the type further including a detent spring carried by" the pooketcarrying structure for automatically snapping into engagement with a part of the head-carrying structure when the latter structure. has its head entered in the pocket to said predetermined extent and so as to permit manual release of said head from the spring on relatively and .momentarily throwing the spring to an abnormal position, a head member and a pocket member each formed of a unitary piece of sheet material and each carrying a pair of tabs on opposite sides bent up and toward each other to form a pocket open-mouthed at one end, one of said pockets having an exteriorsubstantially conforming to the interior of the'other.

A. In a releasable, repeatedly usable latch of" the type including a pocket-carrying structure and a head-carrying structure,

wherein pocket and head are so designed to preclude introduction of the head into the pocket beyond predeterminedextent and to preclude lateral; rocking of the head'in' the pocket, and of the type further including a detent spring carried by the pocketcarrying structure for automatically snapping into engagement with a part of the head-carrying structure when the latter structure has its head entered in the pocket to said predetermined extent and. so as to permit manual release of said head from the spring on relatively and momentarily throwing thespring to an abnormal position, a head member formed or a unitary piece of sheet material and carrying a pair of tabs at opposite sides bent up and toward each other to form a' resiliently established pocket of gradually decreasing cross-section along the length of the member and having an open mouth at its larger end.

5. In a releasable, repeatedly usable latch of the type including a pocket-carrying structure and a head-carrying structure, wherein pocket and head are so designed as to preclude introduction of the head into the pocket beyond a predetermined extent and to preclude lateral rocking of the head in the pocket, and of the type further including a detent spring carried by the pocket-carrying structure for automatically snapping into engagement with a part of the. head-carrying structure when the latter structure has itshead entered inthe pocket to said predetermined "extent and so as to permit manual release of said head from the spring on relatively and momentarily throwing the spring to an abnormal position, a pocket member formed of a unitary piece of sheet material and carrying a pocket structure and a head-carrying structure,

having an open mouth, and a detent spring having a length overlying the top of the pocket and having a terminal portion downwardly bent to extend below the top of the pocket, said pocket member also having a longer tab located between the two tabs first mentioned and bent up to overlie said two tabs and having a terminal portion downwardly bent to extend belowthe top of the pocket. i j

6. In a releasable, repeatedly usable latch of the type including a pocket-carrying wherein pocket and head are so designed as to preclude introduction of the head into the pocket beyond a predetermined extent and to preclude lateral rocking of the head in the pocket, and of the type further including a detent spring carried by the pocket-carrying structure for automatically snapping into engagement with a part of the head-carrying structure when the latter structure has its head entered in the pocket to said predetermined extent and so as to permit manual release of said head from the spring on relatively and momentarily, throwingf'the, spring to an abnormal positi'on, a'pocket member formed of a unitary piece of sheet materialand carrying a pocket having an open mouth, and a detent spring structure and a head-carrying structure, wherein pocket and head are so designed as to preclude introduction 01 the head into the pocket beyond a predetermined extent and to preclude lateral rocking of the head in the pocket, and of the type further including a detent spring carried by the pocket-carrying structure for automatically snapping into engagement with a part of the head-carrying structure when the latter structure has its head entered in the pocket to said predetermined extent and so as to permit manual release of said head from the spring on relatively and momentarily throwing the spring to an abnormal position, a head member formed, of a unitary piece of sheet material and carrying a pair 1 of tabs at opposite sides bent up and tmvard each other to form a resiliently established .pocket of gradually decreasing cross-section along the length of the member and having an open mouth at its larger end, a portion of the head member between its tabs at opposite sides being formed into a central longitudinal rib of gradually increasing height toward the rear end of the head member, said head member further carrying attaching tabs projecting beyond the rear end of the rib bent oppositely to ex* tend laterally and outwardly beyond the rib.

8. A fastener, comprising a socket member, a stud member fitting the socket member, and a spring locking tongue on the outside of the socket member projectin beyond the socket and engaging the heail of the stud.

9. A fastener, comprising a socket memher, a stud member fitting the socket member, and a spring locking tongue on the outside of the socket member projecting beyond the socket and engaging the head of the stud, said tongue having a finger grip adjacent its free end.

10. A fastener, comprising a socket member, astud member fitting the socket member, a spring looking tongue on the outside of the. socket member projecting beyond the socket and engaging the head of the stud, and laterally bent finger gripping portions at the edges of the tongue.

NAPOLEON B. PIERSALL. 

